Thursday, July 23, 2009

The Dirty 30 NOLA Trip - Day One Highlights

As promised, here are some highlights pics of our first day in NOLA, which also just happened to be on my actual birthday, July 17, 2009.

Stacy and I in front of our hotel shortly after we got there so please excuse the dazed, drugged looks...we'd been driving all night.


More dazed, drugged looks...hehe...since we got there so early and had time to kill til we could get our hotel room, we decided to go ahead and take the city tour we wanted to do. It was a couple hours long and took us through the French Quarter, off the bus into a cemetary, and then through the worst of the Katrina hit areas. These included the 8th, 9th, and lower 9th Wards.

The markings on some of the houses was still there from when search teams came through. Notice Katrina was in August 2005, this home was not searched til 911 (Sept 11th), the empty space at the bottom was for number of fatalities. I think we only saw 2 houses with fatalities, but I have a feeling that there were a lot more where the houses were no longer standing and just empty lots. :(

Saint Roch's Cemetary. They fit whole families into those tombs, and its quite an interesting story of how its done.

A Katrina hit house. Notice in the upper right corner of the house, the hole in the ceiling, most likely used as an escape from the rising waters. We saw quite a few of these and I think it was what most disturbed me.

A close up of the holes

Part of the Katrina monument - symbolizes how high the water went in that area

I didn't catch what this part of it symbolized

One of the Brad Pitt Make It Right homes, designed to be entirely "green"

A FEMA trailer with a memorial outside of it

One of the empty lots, the home was just...gone...

After the tour and naps for both of us, we headed to dinner at a restaurant called Rum House in the Garden District. I had never tried fried plantains before, but Stacy talked me into it, they were pretty good! Of course, you can't go to a place called Rum House without getting...RUM...or in our case, Rum Punch.


After that, we walked down to the Riverwalk to look around and explore. This crawfish got a bit fresh with me, I had to put him in his place. *grin*

Then we got on the ferry to go across the Mississippi River and see Sin City from a distance. What a gorgeous site to behold!

Stacy and I on the ferry

Ya know, policemen really shouldn't leave their cars unattended on a ferry. We had to pose a bit...this particular pose, I dubbed "The Po Po Ho" (shout out to Madea!)

After wandering around a bit, we went to a place overlooking the river called the Crazy Lobster for another drink and some dessert for my birthday. Stacy talked these poor musicians into singing Happy Bday to me...lol they were getting ready to GO...but they obliged. So sweet.

And on our way back to the hotel, we skimmed in and out of some souvenir shops, just goofing off. As you can see.

I think I look good as a red head! What do you think?

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